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Obesity reduction initiative by food companies lacks credibility

Over the last week, I’ve received a flood of e-mails from The Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation about an alliance with Discovery Education and Meredith Corporation to help parents, educators, and children address childhood obesity.

The foundation, which was launched last year, is a coalition of 80 retailers, food and beverage manufacturers, sporting goods, insurance, trade associations, and nongovernment organizations. It seeks to help reduce obesity – especially childhood obesity – by 2015.

The foundation promotes ways to help people achieve a healthy weight through energy balance – calories in and calories out. It focuses on three areas – the marketplace, the workplace, and schools.

When I was reading the e-mails from the foundation, I also was writing about the excessive amounts of salt in food. Today’s average sodium intake is several times what the body requires.

An article in The Washington Post recently said that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has begun the process of regulating the amount of sodium in foods. I applauded the action. However, the FDA said in a statement that it’s not currently working on salt regulations nor has it made a decision to regulate sodium content in foods at this time.

The tone and content of the FDA statement reflects the power of the food industry over how food is regulated.

While an Institute of Medicine report said national action is imperative to reduce the sodium in foods if progress is to be made in reducing hypertension and cardiovascular events, the FDA’s reply was that it will review the report and continue to work with other federal agencies, public health and consumer groups, and the food industry to reduce sodium levels in food.

The FDA said the Department of Health and Human Services will establish an interagency working group on sodium at that will review options and next steps.

The FDA also said:

Success in reducing sodium intake will require coordinated national action, with participation of all. We are encouraged by the fact that some food manufacturers have already begun or announced their commitment to reduce sodium levels in their products.

The FDA advised consumers:

As a consumer, you can start lowering your sodium intake today by purchasing foods low in sodium, asking your grocer to carry more low-sodium products, and asking for low-sodium options at restaurants.

The foundation, whose members include Campbell Soup Co., Kellogg Co., Kraft Foods Inc., Mars Inc., Nestlé USA, PepsiCo Inc., The Coca-Cola Co., and The Hershey Co., needs to give up its thinly disguised public relations campaign “to help children and adults achieve better energy balance between calories in and calories out.”

What the food industry needs to do is reduce the amount of sodium, sugar, and fat in the food supply. It needs to give up its extensive, costly lobbying efforts to keep the levels of these items high in processed foods.

What federal governmental agencies need to do is step up and regulate sodium, sugar, and fat in food.

The flurry of e-mails I received was about the foundation’s launching of two web-based outreach campaigns, with two media companies, to encourage and promote physical activity and healthy eating, especially among children.

These outreach programs are dishonest. The foundation and two media companies say they want to teach parents and children about healthy food choices, eating tips, and physical activities. But the food companies who support the programs at the same time are providing huge volumes of unhealthy food to American consumers and are fighting government food regulations and effective dietary guidelines.

I choose not to participate in a media conference about this launch mainly because today is my birthday. However, I did send the following question:

What’s the point in setting up your partnership when the food industry loads food with salt, sugar, and fat and fights government regulations and effective dietary guidelines?

Lisa Gable, executive director of foundation, replied:

We share the FDA goal of reducing sodium consumption. And we also share FDA’s vision that this can be achieved on a voluntary basis. We are seeing enormous progress in this regard, and HWCF companies are a big part of that.

In recent months, more than half of our member companies have announced individual company sodium reduction initiatives. Food and beverage manufacturers have developed and marketed thousands of products in recent years with lower sodium contents.

For example:

Bumble Bee has reduced sodium per serving an average of 44 percent from 2008 in its albacore products.

Campbell recently announced plans to reduce sodium in 23 of its condensed products by up to 45 percent. Also a recent 12 percent reduction in V8, the second sodium reduction in that product in three years.

ConAgra Foods reducing sodium in products by 20 percent by 2015, working on taking 10 million pounds of salt out of American diets.

General Mills has accelerated plans to reduce sodium by 20 percent across multiple product categories by 2015.

Kraft has announced plans to reduce sodium in North American products an average of 10 percent by 2012.

Voluntary action to reduce sodium, fat, and sugar in food isn’t enough. The federal government needs to take action now to regulate these items in the food supply.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.